New Overwatch 2 event explores Greek mythology

A new event for the popular free-to-play team shooter will have in-game heroes dressing up as Greek gods and fighting for the right to be immortalised.

Overwatch 2 will be experimenting with an all-new game mode over the next two weeks, focusing on Greek mythology and fresh takes on familiar heroes.

The new mode is called Battle for Olympus, and has seven popular heroes gaining new skills and abilities as they take on the personas of Ancient Greek gods. The heroes will be reimagined as follows:

• Junker Queen – Zeus
• Roadhog – Polyphemus
• Pharah – Hades
• Lucio – Hermes
• Ramattra – Poseidon
• Widowmaker – Medusa
• Reinhardt – Minotaur

In addition to the visual overhauls, each hero is also getting an upgrade to their skill set. Junker Queen will be able to shoot lightning, Roadhog will be able to throw rocks, and Ramattra will be able to create a vortex that can lift up enemy players. Widomaker, Reinhardt, Pharah, and Lucio will all have buffs to existing abilities.

Overwatch 2’s Battle for Olympus event will add new abilities to fan-favourite characters. Picture: Blizzard

The Battle for Olympus event will also have players competing in a free-for-all deathmatch, a far cry from the usual team-based format of competitive play found in most of the game’s modes. Players will be able to pick which hero they want to use, not locked into roles like normal play.

Blizzard will be tracking the stats from the event, and whichever hero collectively achieves the most eliminations during the event period (January 5 to 19, 2023) will be forever immortalised with a statue in Greece-based map Ilios.

The latest Overwatch 2 hero, Ramattra, was made easier to unlock after players complained about the difficulty of the previous hero, Kiriko. Players previously had to reach Tier 55 of the game’s season one battle pass to unlock Kiriko, which for many players could take upwards of a hundred matches, but the requirements were lowered for Ramattra.

Ramattra is the latest hero to join the Overwatch 2 roster. Picture: Blizzard

The game has had somewhat of a mixed reception from fans since its launch last October. Mei, one of the game’s heroes, was disabled over a game-breaking exploit in early November. The exploit allowed Mei players to use the hero’s ice wall ability to push other players into unintended areas of the map, which gave an unfair advantage.

A bug fix patch to address the issue was then delayed at the last minute, after another critical issue was discovered. That hasn’t stopped players from flocking to the game, however, as Overwatch 2 broke 35 million players in its launch month, far surpassing its predecessor.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.